Good question. I'm not sure exactly where this leads, but as I've been saying for years, it creates confusion. There is a very small segment of the population that wants to steamroll all of society and force everyone to adopt these invented gender classifications. Whatever happens, I don't think this ends well for society.

PORTLAND, Ore., June 14 (UPI) -- An Oregon court has become the first in the nation to declare a person legally neither sex.

Judge Amy Holmes Hehn ruled Friday that U.S. Army veteran Jamie Shupe, who identifies as neither male nor female, can legally gender from female to being considered nonbinary.

"It feels amazing to be free from a binary sex classification system that inadequately addressed who I really am, a system in which I felt confined," Shupe said.

Shupe was born male, later retired sergeant first class from the Army, then transitioned to female in 2013, because Shupe said, it was the only option at the time.

The ruling was described as a "historic step" toward the government's recognizing "nonbinary members of our community and ensuring they have access to identity documents that reflect who they are, just like everyone else," said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, Calif.

Oregon doesn't limit gender choices to male or female by law. The legal process for changing gender has been about the same as changing a name, said Shupe's attorney, Lake Perriguey.

Advocates believe Hehn's ruling might also help clear cases on other issues, such as gender-neutral bathrooms.

PORTLAND, Ore., June 14 (UPI) -- An Oregon court has become the first in the nation to declare a person legally neither sex.

Judge Amy Holmes Hehn ruled Friday that U.S. Army veteran Jamie Shupe, who identifies as neither male nor female, can legally gender from female to being considered nonbinary.

"It feels amazing to be free from a binary sex classification system that inadequately addressed who I really am, a system in which I felt confined," Shupe said.

Shupe was born male, later retired sergeant first class from the Army, then transitioned to female in 2013, because Shupe said, it was the only option at the time.

The ruling was described as a "historic step" toward the government's recognizing "nonbinary members of our community and ensuring they have access to identity documents that reflect who they are, just like everyone else," said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, Calif.

Oregon doesn't limit gender choices to male or female by law. The legal process for changing gender has been about the same as changing a name, said Shupe's attorney, Lake Perriguey.

Advocates believe Hehn's ruling might also help clear cases on other issues, such as gender-neutral bathrooms.

Tim Fogarty, BayGBM, etc.

Can any one of you explain the thought process with any of this? Can you give the overall logic to it?

The New York City Commission on Human Rights recently announced that employers, landlords and other professionals are required to use a transgender person’s preferred pronoun “regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission similarly determined that failing to use a person’s preferred pronoun could violate federal anti-discrimination laws.

^In case anyone denies there are people trying to force some very strange issues. Here you go.

DENVER – A federal judge on Wednesday urged the State Department to give a gender neutral passport to a Colorado Navy veteran who does not identify being male or female in a case that's the first of its kind in the United States.

U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson also suggested he might issue an order forcing the government to do so if it does not successfully negotiate a settlement to the legal challenge by Dana Zzyym, who was denied apassport for refusing to check "male" or "female" on the application.

Zzyym was born with ambiguous sexual characteristics and raised as a boy but later came to identify as intersex and neither man nor woman.

Government lawyers argued that moving beyond two gender choices for passports would upend officials' ability to verify identities and backgrounds because of reliance on drivers' licenses and birth certificates issued by states offering only male and female gender options.

Jackson appeared exasperated at times, saying the State Department needs to catch up to a new era in whichgender identification is not as clear as it was in the past.

"A lot of things are changing in our world," Jackson said.

It's unclear whether a settlement or a judge's order giving Zzyym's a gender neutral passport would have wider ramifications requiring the State Department to grant them to other Americans.

The State Department since 2010 has allowed transgender people to change their gender designation onpassports from male to female or vice versa with a doctor's certification.

Australia, Nepal and New Zealand issue passports that do not designate gender and citizens of those nations are allowed to enter the United States.

But the State Department demands that they state whether they are male or female when they are required to apply for U.S. entry visas.

An Oregon judge last month allowed Jamie Shupe to be legally classified as a nonbinary person, neither male nor female. That decision is also believed to be the first of its kind for the country.

Oregon officials are working on a process to allow Shupe to get a driver's license with that designation, said Shupe's lawyer, Lake Parraguey.

Parraguey said many states have similar, simple processes to change people's gender identities, similar to a name changes, and orders like Shupe's will eventually have to be honored by other states.

One of Zzyym's lawyers, Paul Castillo of the Lamda Legal civil rights group, said the organization has received inquiries from other people identifying themselves as intersex who are following the case closely and hope a decision in Zzyym's favor would help them get gender neutral passports.

NC school to teachers: Don't call students 'boys and girls'By Todd Starnes Published August 16, 2016 FoxNews.com The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district utilized a ‘gender unicorn’ cartoon character to explain issues like gender identity and gender expression. (Courtesy NC Values Coalition)

Teachers in Charlotte, North Carolina, have been advised to stop calling the children “boys and girls,” according to a training presentation on transgender issues.

Instead, the progressives who control Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools want teachers to identify the youngsters as either “students” or “scholars.”

So what if a teacher has a student who is dumb as a rock? Would the child still be called a scholar?

The transgender guidelines, which will go into effect this month, range from the absurd to downright outrageous.

For example, boys who identify as girls would be permitted to participate on overnight all-girl field trips. That’s a rule sure to be a hit among the 13-year-olds.

Another guideline indicates parents could be left out of their child’s gender decision-making. Consider Regulation JICK-R: Privacy Concerns:

“Involvement of parents in the plan is determined in working with the student, considering the student’s age and health, well-being and safety concerns.”

In other words, Jack may be a boy at home, but at school Jack becomes Jill.

“Staff must take care not to ‘out’ a student to others, including the parents of an older student, without the student’s consent,” the presentation stated. “In contacting the parents, use the student’s name/pronoun on birth certificate unless student or parent says otherwise.”

The school district also wanted to embrace gender-neutral bathrooms, locker rooms and showers. However, those edicts were placed on hold pending federal court rulings.

The NC Values Coalition posted 57 pages of training material that the district used to education faculty on LGBT issues.

The district utilized a “gender unicorn” cartoon character to explain issues like gender identity and gender expression. The make-believe character was also used to explain terms like questioning, queer, cis gender, non-binary, genderqueer and gender nonconforming.

The workshop, titled “Transgender 101,” helped teachers learn to “define and use important terms and concepts related to gender identity and identify issues facing transgender and gender expansive students.”

How the teachers in Charlotte are going to have time to teach the kids Driver’s Ed and English 101 is beyond me.

Under the guidelines, students would be allowed to dress in accordance with their gender identity. Dress codes at graduation and prom would be gender neutral.

It sounds like the folks who run the schools in Charlotte are so liberal that their brains have two left sides.

“It’s a radical sexual revolution being forced on our kids,” said Charlotte resident David Benham.

Benham, a well-known businessman and conservative activist, has been outspoken about the district’s policies.

“What they are doing is highlighting and exploiting the transgender community and trying to push their radical agenda on the rest of the students,” he told me.

Benham was especially bothered by the guidelines that would allow members of the opposite sex to participate in overnight fieldtrips.

“How would you like your 13-year-old daughter to be sleeping next to a boy whose hormones are at peak level? It’s craziness,” he said.

Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director of NC Values Coalition, wrote in a statement that the new policies “will seriously endanger students’ privacy and safety, undermine parental authority and severely impair an environment conducive to learning.”

So I reached out to the school district for clarification on some of the most controversial issues -- and I received several responses. I’m not quite certain they answered my questions -- but it’s a response nonetheless.

First, the district confirmed that the new expanded anti-bullying regulation is districtwide. That means all you moms and dads with kindergartners should pay attention.

Spokesperson Renee McCoy told me any decisions on overnight trips “requires the consent of all impacted students and their parents/families.”

As for whether or not the guidelines are considered to be mandated policy or regulations -- Ms. McCoy said they are “regulations.”

Regulations, she said, do not require Board of Education approval.

Also, boys who identify as girls will not be allowed to play on the athletic teams of their choosing because of North Carolina High School Athletic Association regulations.

“The current regulation states that a student’s gender is determined by the gender noted on his or her certificate of birth,” Ms. McCoy said.

I’m sure moms and dads in Mecklenburg County will continue to fight this nonsense -- but don’t expect the school district to change course.

But I’d say there’s a better chance of finding a purple unicorn at the zoo.

Churches in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts have grave concerns about a new anti-discrimination law that could force congregations to accommodate the transgender community – under the threat of fines and jail time.

Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!

The law, which goes into effect in October, does not specifically mention churches or other houses of worship. However, the attorney general, along with the government commission assigned to enforce the law, have a different point of view.

Attorney General Maura Healey wrote that places of public accommodation include: “auditoriums, convention centers, lecture halls, houses of worship, and other places of public gathering.”

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the commission responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination law, reinforced that interpretation in a document titled, “Gender Identity Guidance.”

“Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public,” the document states. “All persons, regardless of gender identity, shall have the right to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation.”

The Massachusetts Family Institute has launched a petition drive to repeal the law – warning that pastors and parishioners could find themselves in serious legal trouble.

“The law bootstraps the idea of gender identity onto existing Civil Rights laws,” MFI president Andrew Beckwith tells me. “Even having a sign in your church that says “This Bathroom is for Biological Women Only” could subject the pastor of the church to up to 30 days in jail.”

Beckwith said under the law, the sign would be treated the same as if it had said, “Whites Only.”

He said the MFI reached out to the attorney general’s office for clarification on the law and they were instructed to “get an attorney.”

“Churches are left not knowing whether it applies to them or not,” he said.

So who is going to be deciding what is and what is not a secular event?

“It shows a religious tone deafness on the part of whoever is writing these regulations,” Beckwith said. “Any pastor talk to is going to say their services and ministries and programs are open to the general public. That’s the whole point – to spread the Gospel and minister to the whole community.”

That’s a fact.

I’ve seen revival break out over the potato salad - during a dinner-on-the-grounds at a Baptist church in Mississippi.

Beckwith said he hopes churches will join their campaign to repeal the law – warning that “it’s going to have very real consequences on religious liberty.”

“If the church doesn’t defend itself from these attacks on religious liberty, they are going to cease having the ability to make the pastoral decisions they need to be able to make,” he said.

I reached out to the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination and they told me Commissioner Sunila Thomas George said there’s really no need for alarm.

“By and large, places of worship are not held to the Massachusetts Anti-Discrimination statutes that deal with places of public accommodation,” she said. “We are not by any means saying that the anti-discrimination laws absolutely apply to them.”

But, they could.

“There are circumstances where places of worship hold activities at their facilities or in their buildings that are purely secular events,” she said.

Among the activities that the state considers secular are soup kitchens, day care, housing, and polling places.

“In those circumstances, places of worship could be seen as open to the public,” Ms. George told me. “The operative word is ‘could.’”

So let’s use MCAD’s example of a church spaghetti supper. Under the state’s guidelines, that supper could fall under the anti-discrimination law.

I asked MCAD what the church would need to do to comply with the law.

“You would want to make sure that people are treated with regard to their gender identity and treated fairly and equitably,” Ms. George told me.

So what, specifically, does that mean?

“As long as people who are transitioning or who have transitioned are able to use a restroom they identity with, I think you are complying with the law,” she said. “You would want to make sure they are accommodated.

In other words, churches that hold spaghetti suppers would have to let men who identify as women use the same bathrooms as the little Sunday school girls.

The Baptist Convention of New England is among the religious groups in the region opposing the law – warning that it’s an attack on the First Amendment.

“Any attempt by a small vocal activist group to strip churches of that right should be vehemently opposed by all people,” executive director Terry Dorsett told Baptist Press. “If they can take a church’s right to practice their faith away, imagine what else they can do.”

For starters, they can tell good churchgoing folks what they can do with their spaghetti and meatballs.

The leftwing Human Rights Campaign has joined forces with two groups of pediatricians to urge parents and teachers to let children and teenagers choose their own ‘gender identity.’

The new advocacy booklet, “Supporting and Caring For Transgender Children,” is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians. The booklet begins with the story of Jazz Jennings, a boy who decided in 2007 that he is female. Now aged 16, Jazz is a transgender activist who also sells skin-care products for Johnson & Johnson.

The guide urges parents to let their children pick their own gender and to undergo irreversible sexual surgery:

Ideally, though, the child takes the lead in these decisions … Clinicians increasingly embrace a “gender-affirming” approach to children who are gender-expansive or transgender. This approach means focusing on what the child says about their own gender identity and expression, and allowing them to determine which forms of gender expression feel comfortable and authentic

The guide gives the impression that there are “many” unrecognized transgender children:

Misunderstandings about transgender children mean that many still don’t get the support they deserve, and the consequences can be tragic. Fortunately, we know far more than ever before about what these children need to grow up safe and healthy. Across the United States and worldwide, policies and attitudes are changing to better support transgender kids.

To boost the number of gender-conflicted children, the advocacy book also create a new category of child — the “gender-expansive” child. That term is defined as, “Children who do not conform to their culture’s expectations for boys or girls. Being transgender is one way of being gender-expansive, but not all gender-expansive children are transgender.”

Though a study of the 2010 census shows the population of transgender people amounts to one of every 2,400 Americans, or 0.03 percent of the adult population, HRC states the numbers of transgendered children are growing “as more families decide to affirm their child’s gender identity.” That phrase suggests there are many additional unidentified transgender children because parents are just not affirming their “gender” choice.

HRC states its own commissioned poll found that “35 percent of U.S. likely voters know someone who is transgender,” while 12 percent of that group knew a transgender child or teen.”

The gay group and the medical groups say their guide is for “anyone who knows a transgender or gender-expansive child…and offers suggestions for adults with a transgender child in their life.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics has been a promoter of leftwing causes, especially Obamacare and the practice of urging pediatricians to ask their child patients about gun ownership during routine office visits. The organization has also issued a policy statement “urging pediatricians and politicians to work together” to “protect children from climate-related threats…”

The new push comes as President Barack Obama has begun strongly backing the new gender ideology, which says government should force Americans to accept other people’s choice of apparent gender. This year, he threatened schools with funding cuts if they don’t end the use of single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms. His administration also backed punishments for children who object to the elimination of distinct single-sex facilities or who refuse to use the female pronoun – ‘her’ – when referring to boys who wish to live as girls, and urged schools to keep parents in the dark about their children’s at-school gender-related activities.

Mainstream pediatricians and professionals are becoming very concerned about the mental health of children in America who are now being exposed to the Obama administration’s promotion of gender ideology in schools and workplaces. These professionals signed onto an open letter that asserts the ideology is “putting the nation’s children at risk.”

The American College of Pediatricians states gender ideology is harmful to children and that, by promoting gender fluidity in its school bathroom directive, the Obama administration is complicit in masking serious mental health issues in children.

The college states:

No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one…

A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V)…

“According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty,” the College asserts. “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.”

In contrast, HRC and its partner pediatricians’ groups say “gender dysphoria” must be averted by making sure society comforts the child;

Depending on the child’s age and signs of distress, “gender-affirmative” counseling or therapy can help manage gender dysphoria. However, in many cases, the remedy for dysphoria is gender transition: taking steps to affirm the gender that feels comfortable and authentic to the child. It is important to understand that, for children who have not reached puberty, gender transition involves no medical interventions at all: it consists of social changes like name, pronoun and gender expression.

However, once children have reached puberty, which could be any time between age 9 and 16, HRC and its partner pediatricians recommend body-altering drugs and irreversible surgery for children:

Children beginning puberty may also use puberty-suppressing medication as they explore their gender identity. Both of these steps are completely reversible.

Social transition is equally important for adults and older adolescents. People in these age groups may also take additional steps, including gender-affirming hormone therapy and surgeries.

These recommendations clash with the recommendations of Youth Trans Critical Professionals – a group of self-described “left-leaning, open-minded, and pro-gay rights” professionals. The group says it is risky to affirm young people who claim to be transgender and provide them with hormonal and surgical treatments to change their bodies.

“Our concern is with medical transition for children and youth,” say Youth Trans Critical Professionals on their website. “We feel that unnecessary surgeries and/or hormonal treatments which have not been proven safe in the long-term represent significant risks for young people.”

“Policies that encourage — either directly or indirectly — such medical treatment for young people who may not be able to evaluate the risks and benefits are highly suspect, in our opinion,” says the organization, which is composed of psychologists, social workers, doctors, and other professionals.

The professionals express “alarm” that, because of the current trendiness of being transgendered, many young people have decided they are a member of the opposite sex simply as a result of “binges” on social media sites. They describe a process of transgender activists recruiting these young people for their “cult.”

“There is evidence that vulnerable young people are being actively recruited and coached on such sites to believe that they are trans,” the professionals say.

As noted, HRC and its partner pediatricians urge only “gender-affirmative” therapy. Youth Trans Critical Professionals view state prohibitions against other forms of therapy that may help young people evaluate their feelings as dangerous since they may block the process of critical thinking and evaluation of the young person regarding the reasons why he or she desires to become a transgender member of the opposite sex.

They explain:

While the sentiment behind this legislation is laudable, in some cases, it is being interpreted to mean that therapists cannot explore gender identity with a youth who is professing to be trans. This would mean we can’t ask why; we can’t explore underlying mental health issues; we can’t consider the symbolic nature of the gender dysphoria; and we can’t look at possible confounding issues such as social media use or social contagion.

The signers of the open letter write that radical progressives promoting the gender fluid policy for young people are “distorting the law” against a flood of opposition from “the overwhelming majority of Americans.”

They add:

In addition, considering all the possible actions the federal government should be taking to keep us safe — like addressing porous borders, rising terrorism, the weakening economy, the escalating collapse of the Middle East, rising crime rates, etc. — we firmly believe that, in setting bathroom, shower and locker room policies in local schools, the federal government has exceeded its authorities while putting our children’s mental health at risk to politically-driven psychology and their very lives in peril at the hands of potential sexual predators.

The leaders urge others “to join us in opposing this grave threat to children and this abject rejection of law-making by self-government, that manner by which America’s founders intended our constitutional system to function.”

Organizers of the group trying to persuade local, state and federal governments to give people a box to check on official documents that isn’t “male” or “female” say 2016 was their most successful year ever.

Residents of Oregon and California are now able to designate themselves as “non-binary,” according to NBC News. And so far, two people, who call themselves by the “inclusive pronoun” “their,” have checked “non-binary” on state documents.

“It’s been exploding,” lawyers for the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project told media. “It hasn’t been a slow ramping up—it’s been really fast since [the Oregon resident’s] success in the beginning of the year.”

IGRP’s lawyers say that their Facebook page has received “dozens” of messages from people “around the country” looking to designate themselves as “non-binary,” and that IGRP has already filed petitions in San Francisco to move several cases along.

But despite what IGRP considers forward movement, it’s still not making everyone in the progressive community happy. “Non-binary” people say that they still have trouble finding recognition, even in LGBTQ circles, and that some of the designations (people in the DC’s city government can now list their gender as “unknown”) aren’t specific enough.

Facebook, for instance, lists 58 separate choices under “gender” in its profile questionnaire, including “agendered,” “gender non-conforming” and “genderqueer,” choices that “non-binary” individuals say would be nice to have. Federal documentation like passports still offer only two choices —and the third-gender people are suffering because of it, the group says.

“It’s a painful hypocrisy that, simply because I refused to lie about my gender on a government document, that the government would ignore who I am,” said one litigant challenging the federal government’s passport rules. “I hope the State Department will do the right thing now.”

Organizers of the group trying to persuade local, state and federal governments to give people a box to check on official documents that isn’t “male” or “female” say 2016 was their most successful year ever.

Residents of Oregon and California are now able to designate themselves as “non-binary,” according to NBC News. And so far, two people, who call themselves by the “inclusive pronoun” “their,” have checked “non-binary” on state documents.

“It’s been exploding,” lawyers for the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project told media. “It hasn’t been a slow ramping up—it’s been really fast since [the Oregon resident’s] success in the beginning of the year.”

IGRP’s lawyers say that their Facebook page has received “dozens” of messages from people “around the country” looking to designate themselves as “non-binary,” and that IGRP has already filed petitions in San Francisco to move several cases along.

But despite what IGRP considers forward movement, it’s still not making everyone in the progressive community happy. “Non-binary” people say that they still have trouble finding recognition, even in LGBTQ circles, and that some of the designations (people in the DC’s city government can now list their gender as “unknown”) aren’t specific enough.

Facebook, for instance, lists 58 separate choices under “gender” in its profile questionnaire, including “agendered,” “gender non-conforming” and “genderqueer,” choices that “non-binary” individuals say would be nice to have. Federal documentation like passports still offer only two choices —and the third-gender people are suffering because of it, the group says.

“It’s a painful hypocrisy that, simply because I refused to lie about my gender on a government document, that the government would ignore who I am,” said one litigant challenging the federal government’s passport rules. “I hope the State Department will do the right thing now.”

So can these people avoid registering for the Selective Service if they decide to state anything other than "male"? Or if they joined the military would they be held to lower physical fitness standards if they declared a gender other than "male"?

Churches in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts have grave concerns about a new anti-discrimination law that could force congregations to accommodate the transgender community – under the threat of fines and jail time.

Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!

The law, which goes into effect in October, does not specifically mention churches or other houses of worship. However, the attorney general, along with the government commission assigned to enforce the law, have a different point of view.

Attorney General Maura Healey wrote that places of public accommodation include: “auditoriums, convention centers, lecture halls, houses of worship, and other places of public gathering.”

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the commission responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination law, reinforced that interpretation in a document titled, “Gender Identity Guidance.”

“Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public,” the document states. “All persons, regardless of gender identity, shall have the right to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation.”

The Massachusetts Family Institute has launched a petition drive to repeal the law – warning that pastors and parishioners could find themselves in serious legal trouble.

“The law bootstraps the idea of gender identity onto existing Civil Rights laws,” MFI president Andrew Beckwith tells me. “Even having a sign in your church that says “This Bathroom is for Biological Women Only” could subject the pastor of the church to up to 30 days in jail.”

Beckwith said under the law, the sign would be treated the same as if it had said, “Whites Only.”

He said the MFI reached out to the attorney general’s office for clarification on the law and they were instructed to “get an attorney.”

“Churches are left not knowing whether it applies to them or not,” he said.

So who is going to be deciding what is and what is not a secular event?

“It shows a religious tone deafness on the part of whoever is writing these regulations,” Beckwith said. “Any pastor talk to is going to say their services and ministries and programs are open to the general public. That’s the whole point – to spread the Gospel and minister to the whole community.”

That’s a fact.

I’ve seen revival break out over the potato salad - during a dinner-on-the-grounds at a Baptist church in Mississippi.

Beckwith said he hopes churches will join their campaign to repeal the law – warning that “it’s going to have very real consequences on religious liberty.”

“If the church doesn’t defend itself from these attacks on religious liberty, they are going to cease having the ability to make the pastoral decisions they need to be able to make,” he said.

I reached out to the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination and they told me Commissioner Sunila Thomas George said there’s really no need for alarm.

“By and large, places of worship are not held to the Massachusetts Anti-Discrimination statutes that deal with places of public accommodation,” she said. “We are not by any means saying that the anti-discrimination laws absolutely apply to them.”

But, they could.

“There are circumstances where places of worship hold activities at their facilities or in their buildings that are purely secular events,” she said.

Among the activities that the state considers secular are soup kitchens, day care, housing, and polling places.

“In those circumstances, places of worship could be seen as open to the public,” Ms. George told me. “The operative word is ‘could.’”

So let’s use MCAD’s example of a church spaghetti supper. Under the state’s guidelines, that supper could fall under the anti-discrimination law.

I asked MCAD what the church would need to do to comply with the law.

“You would want to make sure that people are treated with regard to their gender identity and treated fairly and equitably,” Ms. George told me.

So what, specifically, does that mean?

“As long as people who are transitioning or who have transitioned are able to use a restroom they identity with, I think you are complying with the law,” she said. “You would want to make sure they are accommodated.

In other words, churches that hold spaghetti suppers would have to let men who identify as women use the same bathrooms as the little Sunday school girls.

The Baptist Convention of New England is among the religious groups in the region opposing the law – warning that it’s an attack on the First Amendment.

“Any attempt by a small vocal activist group to strip churches of that right should be vehemently opposed by all people,” executive director Terry Dorsett told Baptist Press. “If they can take a church’s right to practice their faith away, imagine what else they can do.”

For starters, they can tell good churchgoing folks what they can do with their spaghetti and meatballs.

Obama Transgender Care Rule Under FirePosted on January 3, 2017, by Keith Koffler

Lawsuits are mounting against the Obama administration’s new requirements for transgender care, but the issue might turn in their opponents’ favor under the incoming Trump administration, the Washington Examiner reported.

The Catholic Benefits Association, which represents more than 700 Catholic employers including many hospitals, filed a lawsuit in federal court Dec. 28 in an effort to get its members exempted from the rule. Five states and several other Christian healthcare providers are already fighting the requirement in another case against the rule. A Texas judge halted the rule over the weekend.

The rule, which went into effect Jan. 1, says that doctors can’t refuse to provide medically necessary health services within their scope of practice because of a patient’s gender identity. For instead, a gynecologist couldn’t refuse to perform a cervical Pap test for a transgender man.